Andrew Warner: Hey there, freedom Fighters. You know me. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. You know, a lot of my friends for a long time after. Take. In fact, I don’t like saying a lot of my friends, lemme talk about one specifically Noah Kagan fricking guy.
Before he put a bite of food in his mouth at lunch one time, took a photo out. I go, dude, are you putting this on Instagram? He goes, no, no, I’m sending it over to Adam. I go, what? Adam? He goes, you know, our friend Adam Gilbert. I go, what does Adam need to see what you’re eating? He goes, he needs to hold me accountable.
He’s, I’m working out with him. This is really an interesting thing to do, and Noah did it, and then. Other friends over the years have done it, and now my partner in bootstrap Giants, Jesse Pujji, is working not with Adam, but with one of Adam’s coaches, trainers remotely. I go, there’s something really interesting here.
Years ago, if I would’ve seen the interesting thing beyond behind this business, human beings getting text messages from other human beings holding each other accountable. I would’ve thought, nah, the audience only cares about software. Today, I’m noticing that entrepreneurs are really fascinated by these.
Businesses that are human run, not software run. And I don’t know of another person who I should be talking to about this beyond Adam Gilbert because not only has he done it with my body tutor and has built it up over the years as a service where if you’re trying to get fit, he’ll have remote trainers work, work with you and get you there.
But now he’s created a new thing for people in business who are trying to be. Business fit, hold their account, hold their calendars accountable and themselves accountable. It’s called Done Daily, and so I wanna see how it worked back then and now how he’s building a similar business today. I invited him out here, Adam, good to see you.
Likewise man. Thanks so much
Adam Gilbert: for having me. I appreciate it. So how many years have you been doing this? 18 years. 2007. I started.
Andrew Warner: Did you feel a little bit of inadequacy in the period where SaaS was the only thing that mattered in entrepreneurial world?
Adam Gilbert: You know, it’s funny. Uh, this is a very mission-driven business for me, so I really never was bothered by it.
Uh, so no, but people certainly wanted to only talk about that. That was fine.
Andrew Warner: Okay. Uh, you know, I’m gonna ask you what your revenue is. What can you tell me about what the revenue is?
Adam Gilbert: Um, well, I don’t share that publicly. We have 75 coaches. It’s a wonderful business. It’s in the millions. Um, but that is all I will share.
Andrew Warner: Profitable?
Adam Gilbert: Yes.
Andrew Warner: How many of the 18 years was it profitable?
Adam Gilbert: Since day one. Wow. And in the beginning it was just you, right? It was just me. Then we hired another coach, another coach, another coach, and uh, yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Now we’re up to 75 coaches.
Andrew Warner: How do you go from being someone who has the job that every mom would be proud of?
Ernst and Young auditor on a career path to then going off and, I don’t know, doing personal training, which I think a lot of moms might worry that their kids becoming a meathead, and it doesn’t, it doesn’t have, it’s not as lucrative as being a consultant. How do you make the leap and why’d you make that leap?
Adam Gilbert: Yeah, so you know, growing up. My father was very sick. I witnessed him having a heart attack. A few days later he had trouble bypass surgery, and then later that year he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Tough year for my dad. Um,
Andrew Warner: wait, when you say you witnessed him having a heart attack, you’re saying you were in the room with him when he had the heart attack?
Adam Gilbert: So my parents were divorced. He called my sister who was actually learning how to drive at that time, and we drove him to the hospital. So I saw him having a heart attack, saw him in the room, hooked up to everything. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty scary.
Andrew Warner: Wow. Okay. And what did you take away from that?
Adam Gilbert: That health is true wealth.
Um, and that without it nothing means all that much.
Andrew Warner: What, what was your health like, and what was his health, health like before all this?
Adam Gilbert: So we spoke two packs of cigarettes a day. He didn’t exercise, he didn’t, he eat nutritiously. Um, he was, you know, a workaholic and he didn’t take care of himself whatsoever.
Um, and you know, later that year he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I watched him deteriorate mentally and physically throughout the years until he passed away. Um huh. So, for me, health has just always been, I mean, it’s really starting with that heart attack, a huge passion of mine just because it’s just, um, it’s so important.
It’s everything. Right. The old, what’s
Andrew Warner: the first thing that you did after that? How did you change your life at that point?
Adam Gilbert: I started really watching. I mean, I was in seventh grade. I started really watching when I was eating, I started exercising. I started becoming really passionate about it. I would read everything I could get my hands on.
Um, and it just became kind of this obsession.
Andrew Warner: You know, there are two ways to go about something like this. I’ve been trying to be, I think I’ve been healthy my whole life. If I worry about being. Out of shape or fat or whatever. It doesn’t motivate me enough. There’s something about working out where I have to feel like I am a Superman for doing it, for it to be exciting for me.
You know, like with business, I do for some reason drive myself with fear of what happens if like I can’t make it work. I used to, I don’t know that I do it anymore, but I wonder when you are trying to work out, it’s not a very motivating thing to do. You better not to to tell yourself. Work out harder or else you’re going to get sick, like your dad work out harder or else you’re not going to survive, is it?
Adam Gilbert: You know, for me, my motivation, I have two kids, is my kids. I mean, I grew up, there was definitely times where I was a little bitter, where my dad was on the silence. I have very few memories of playing with my dad, so. I always want to be available for my kids. I always want to play with them. I always want to be participating.
But before
Andrew Warner: you had kids, was it, was it motivating for you to think about the, the pain of not doing it right, of not getting it?
Adam Gilbert: I mean, I guess fear was, you know, I was for some reason terrified of hospitals. I mean, it’s just very, seeing all those, like seeing hooked up, like, so for me it was more just, I was fearful of getting sick, but it was also, yeah, I do feel.
Better. When I’m taking care of myself, I have the most energy. I’m the best version of myself when I am eating nutritiously and I’m exercising.
Andrew Warner: Okay, I get it. So then you say, I’m gonna be healthy. I guess that what you did was after graduating from school, you took a job in in New York at Ernst and Young, right?
Yep. What’s the leap that allowed you to then go and be a personal trainer?
Adam Gilbert: So I always knew I wanted to get involved in health fitness, but I kind of, you know, my parents really pushed me to focus on accounting as well, even though I studied nutrition in college as well. Um, so I always knew I would do something in it.
But when I was at ERNs and Young, I was the go-to guy for fitness. I was the go-to guy for nutrition, and it was always the same story. I would give my friends and colleagues advice or plan, and it was the same story. I love the plan you made for me, but. The but was I got caught up with work, client engagements, travel life, happy hour kids, you name it.
Right. And these people had a plan. We agreed on the plan together. They loved it, but they weren’t following through.
Andrew Warner: Tell me about one guy, like you were telling me about Mark before.
Adam Gilbert: Yeah, so you know, mark, one of my friends there, he was about 30 pounds overweight. I’d given him a plan and it was the same story.
It was, I love this, but. And I realized the missing link, there was daily accountability. There needed to be a way for me to communicate with him every day, and that was the big idea for my body shooter, was, sure, we’re gonna tell you exactly what you need to eat, exactly what you need to do for exercise.
We’re gonna help you get through anything, everything that gets in the way, but we’re gonna make sure you’re following through day in and day out. That was the big idea.
Andrew Warner: You know what I get that I hate when personal trainers, business coaches, anybody at all, if they tell you what you need to do and you’re not getting it done, and they blame you as the, as the customer, they blame you as the end user, you must not want it enough.
That’s not really an answer. I get that there’s some limit to how much outsiders can support a person, but if someone’s signing up and they’re saying, I can’t do it, I think it’s on, you know, it’s on the service provider to say, I will find a way to help you out. A hundred percent
Adam Gilbert: it, it drives, what was the
Andrew Warner: first version
Adam Gilbert: instead?
No,
Andrew Warner: go
Adam Gilbert: ahead. It drives me crazy like I’m a big basketball fan and you know, there are coaches who, they need players to fit their system, whereas I think the best coaches will mold their team and mold the way they play to their personnel. And I totally agree with you. If the plan’s not working for the client, it’s not the client’s fault, it’s our fault.
’cause we need to adjust and make sure it’s realistic and practical based on the realities of their life.
Andrew Warner: Okay, so then what’s the first version that you took for the, that became this business? What kind of accountability?
Adam Gilbert: So it was very simple. At first, it was email and text-based. We have a phone call.
We learn about what your goals are, what your challenges are, whether it’s emotional eating, stress eating, mindless eating, you know, self-sabotage, fear of success. There’s all sorts of things that get in the way, and surprisingly, a lot of them are between our ears. But we would talk about all that. We would come up with a plan, and then every day they would email us what they ate, what they did for exercise, if it was an exercise day, and then every single day after, I would write back to them with personalized feedback, suggestions and encouragement.
I.
Andrew Warner: Alright. And then at what point did you decide to charge for this? I’m laughing because this seems so simple and I am, I’m a hundred percent behind this. Let me just talk about my personal point of view on this stuff that I remember. I thought of myself as a very hungry, entrepreneurial kid. I finally got to start my own business and I have journal entries of me.
Beating myself up for not getting stuff done. I can’t believe I spent the whole day. There were no calls or no obligations, and I still didn’t get it done. What’s wrong with me? And then at some point I inched my way towards enough success that I could hire someone. I hired my friend Crystal, from high school.
She started working with me and what I realized was I instantly became product productive and. It was partially because there’s someone watching me and so I couldn’t get into this mental loop of not being productive or not getting things done, but also if I was stuck, there was someone who would say, Hey, I think I could take that off your hands.
Or, what if you try a different way? All that was incredibly eye-opening. I, when it was time for me to write my book on interviewing, stop asking questions. I couldn’t get it done until I hired two people. One was an editor who, um, happened to be our friend, Noah Kagan’s editor too. I, I just hired her personally.
I said, every week, I want you to guide me. And then I would go on, uh, what is it called? Focusmate. And I would have someone watch me as I typed and otherwise I couldn’t get it done. And this type of thing feels like such a, I don’t know, a mental crutch, but sign me up. If a mental crutch is what I need in order to keep walking, I’m gonna keep doing it.
But the reason I’m laughing is. If I had that idea like you did, I would’ve thought, uh, this is not a big enough idea. This seems a little too simple. It could be reproduced. This is for people who are weak. How did you get past that to recognize that there’s enough of a business in here that you can actually build 18 years in on it and a family on it and so much else?
Adam Gilbert: I mean, that’s a great point. So two things. Number one, my thesis from day one was that people know what to do. We know what’s good for us. We know a salad is better for us than cookies. We know we should exercise. We know all this. So especially when I first started, like it was interesting on, on the online space.
’cause my body tutor’s always been online. You know, people were selling courses, they were selling knowledge. We always felt the follow through was the missing link. The accountability was the missing link. And every person I would talk to, you ask them, they, everyone feels like they know exactly what to do in order to lose weight.
They just can’t do it consistently. And consistency, to me is the biggest problem in health and fitness, and that’s what we solve. Um, so for us, we felt like, no, we have the missing link. It’s not about knowledge. It’s about making sure you’re falling through. And we boiled it down to three reasons. Um, and that’s what my body to resolve.
That is those three, those three reasons. Then in terms of just your point of, you know, it wasn’t big enough. So for, for many years, I’ve always wanted to do my own thing and, and be an entrepreneur and help people. I always thought I had to start the next Google or Facebook or whatever it was, and I did nothing because I, I just kept being like, oh, it’s not big enough.
It wasn’t until I focused on going smaller and I thought, small is the new big. That’s when I started to get action going. That’s when I started to get momentum going and I was like, you know what? You love helping people lose weight, get fit, start with one person instead of trying to create the next Google.
Andrew Warner: Okay. And so you said, look, I’m not gonna try to make this into this big product that I know will survive for what, 18 years or so. I just am going to think about one person. Who’s the first person you sold it to?
Adam Gilbert: Yeah. So the fir, I mean, so I had my friends at at Orange Jones, but the first person I sold it to was this client named Simeon.
I’ll never forget, I mean when, when, when I launched my body tutor. Um, so back then. I don’t know if you remember a OL instant messenger. Um, I actually had my AIM screen name on the website and people would, uh, IM me and I would talk with them and Simio is my first client and I was like, listen, just gimme a chance.
If we don’t help you, we will give you your money back in 30 days. We still offer our money back guarantee ’cause I believe in what we do that much. Uh, and she was our first client and she realized her biggest challenge as many people is consistency. And, you know, thankfully. She referred us to some people and just slowly but surely, it started to grow.
Andrew Warner: And so you were, at what point did you make enough money that this could be the full-time thing? How long did it take to get to that?
Adam Gilbert: So, my only goal, so I quit Ernst Young. I started Ernst Young in 2005. I quit there in January of 2007. Um, started my body tutor in February, 2007. My only goal was to be able to make my rent that first month in New York City.
I did not wanna move home. That was not an option. And I was able to make my rent that first month. And it was just slowly but shortly. I mean, back then I had no kids wait. With
Andrew Warner: within one month of getting people to pay you for doing this?
Adam Gilbert: Yeah, it, from February of 2007 to April of 2007, we really, um, I actually, so back then I was advertising on Facebook and back then it was Facebook flyers before we even had the whole advertising system.
Andrew Warner: I remember.
Adam Gilbert: Yep. And we actually had so many clients we had to shut down the advertising. We, I say we, I did you, what was the flyer? What was the offer that was so compelling? It was just, um, summer is coming, will you be ready? Let my body Sure. Help you. And we had a very interesting, funny image of a guy with just a big beer belly.
Um, and it, it works.
Andrew Warner: You know Adam, I’m laughing because it doesn’t even say anything special about or unique about what you’re offering. It’s just another weight loss thing, but because I guess you were early in Facebook ads, it worked. What were you charging per month for this back then? It was $75 for six weeks,
Adam Gilbert: 75 for six weeks.
And then Accounta daily coaching. It wasn’t even subscription. No, it wasn’t subscription. So it wasn’t until April, 2007 where a friend’s like. A friend suggested, but even more so, all my, all the clients who had started were like, I want to keep going. So it was like, what? What can you do? That’s when the, it was like, all right, turn this into a subscription, and then we moved it to four weeks, a monthly me membership.
Andrew Warner: Okay. All right. How hard was it to explain what this is?
Adam Gilbert: It was tricky, but the, I think people really got it pretty quickly because it was, listen, we’re gonna tell you what to do, but most importantly, we’re gonna make sure you’re actually doing it. I think that value prop was really compelling for people because they all felt like they had a plan.
They would read articles, they’d read books, whatever it was, but they weren’t following through. Our whole promise was, we’re gonna make sure you’re following through day in and day out.
Andrew Warner: And so you would have a list of all your customers, I’m assuming, in like an Excel spreadsheet, if not a Google sheet, and you would just keeping track of, did you message each one of them?
What did they say with you? Don’t even have to keep track of what they said in the last message, aim or text or whatever keeps track of it. And that was it. That was it. What else was it? Was it, what am I missing? Something like, did you, I’m assuming you also kept their goals on each person’s record when you would just.
Adam Gilbert: But it was also, I mean, we’re certainly accountability experts, but there’s also more to it in terms of what we were offering. Right. So it wasn’t more, it wasn’t simply just, good job, bad job. Why do you do it? You know, I think we do three things really well, and number one, we come up with a plan that is catered and customized to the client.
Number two, we focus on what we call their MPH, their mindset, psychology and habits, their relationship of food. Things like emotional, mindless stress, eating, um, and then of course the accountability. But I think, you know, we’re also experts in terms of like. From so many people, they can’t get outta their own way.
And that’s where the MPH component, the mindset psychology habits component, really comes into play.
Andrew Warner: Okay, so then this was you Facebook ads shut it down. What was the next step? Buying more ads or bringing in another coach,
Adam Gilbert: bringing in another coach, and starting to look at solutions where I could manage other coaches and see what they were writing.
So, uh, we worked with a firm in Colorado that built a system for us. That is still the basic. I mean, we’ve redone it many times since. But that idea of just each day you’re uploading photos of what you ate or writing descriptions of what you ate, you’re submitting that at the end of the day, and then your coach goes in the following day and writes back in this system.
Andrew Warner: And this was a text-based system that you had built for yourself. And how much did it cost you to get this first version?
Adam Gilbert: First version. I mean, when I, when we hired a firm, it was $18,000. I remember thinking, wow, this is insane. I cannot believe I’m spending this amount of money to build this software.
But it was a whole backend system. And the key thing was I was able to have other users and I could be the admin and I could check in what, how they were writing. ’cause I’ve always been obsessed with quality. And that was a big limiting, uh, that was a big bottleneck until I figured out, uh, systems and people.
Andrew Warner: How did you figure it out? What was the issue that you, you had with it, and then how’d you figure that out?
Adam Gilbert: Well, very quickly, I’ll share it. My definition of self-sabotage is when you fear the very thing you, you say you want to accomplish, right? So you want to grow, you want to serve more people. But on some level, you fear that.
And I think if you look at any small business owner or any business owner, they feel like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. They feel like they have no time, and if they get busier, they’re only gonna be. More busy and have less free time. It wasn’t until I realized that I had to have the right person, so we hired a head coach.
Um, I had the right system where I can manage coaches. That is where the big breakthrough happened, whereas I realized if we serve more people, if we get more clients, life will actually be better off, not worse off. And so often, a lot of entrepreneurs, they say they want to grow, but on some level, they’re kind of putting their foot on the gas and break at the same time because they know that if they get busier, they’re gonna have even less free time.
Andrew Warner: I kind, I kind of assumed that you were running as a coach for a long time. I know that you still are, you still coach people. What point did you stop doing day-to-day coaches?
Adam Gilbert: I still work with a, a small handful of people. Um, but I would say, you know, we year 18, I would say starting year two, year three, I really started spending a lot of my time.
Helping coaches, managing them, uh, helping them be the best version they can. Um, but you know, I really, that was, that was a big part of it. But the real big change for me is when my first son was born. ’cause I was coaching mo most of our clients back then, and it was like, mm-hmm this is not sustainable.
This is crazy. I can’t do
Andrew Warner: this anymore. I do find that that happens to a lot of people. They get a kid or they’re about to have a kid and they say, okay, now it’s time for me to really systemize ’cause I can’t handle it. I know that happened for me. I think Jesse had written about that too for his, before his first son was born, he decided I can’t continue like this working nonstop and then it makes you a better entrepreneur for working less, which is
Adam Gilbert: like
Andrew Warner: a mind fuck.
Adam Gilbert: Totally. Totally. That was huge for me because I think right before my first son was born. I mean, I was probably working with 80 clients. I, I was just, it was all day long. It was crazy and I was just like, this is no way. And I realized I was the bottleneck in the business. Like, that’s not good.
Andrew Warner: Alright, so first was Facebook flyers.
What came up after that?
Adam Gilbert: We actually did not advertise, uh, for many, many, many years after that. Thankfully. Word of mouth just really spread. How,
Andrew Warner: what’s the deal with word of mouth? What is it? People just actually like it enough that they’re gonna go tell their friends. There’s no virality built in it.
Adam Gilbert: Well, I, I think when someone loses weights, you’re, they become a natural walking billboard, right? And people say, Hey, what did you do? And I think when people really love a service and when something has helped them and they’ve tried to, you know, seemingly everything under the sun and nothing’s worked, they can’t help but talk about you.
So for us, we got really, you know, I mean, we still have amazing clients who support us and they spread the word because they’re doing something that’s working when nothing else has worked for them.
Andrew Warner: You know what? That is true. When someone loses weight or puts on muscles, they can’t stop talking about the personal trainer.
They got the system they have. It really is, um, it’s an opportunity to brag without bragging. Exactly. You know, like you get to brag about what you did by talking about someone else and make it more acceptable. So there was no like, affiliate program, commission program, discount program. None of that just, they tell their friends that’s it.
They tell their
Adam Gilbert: friends and thank, I mean, I can literally trace. You know, our business to like three or four people, just they to, I mean, it’s amazing.
Andrew Warner: Interesting. Okay, so I, I hear now where you are with this. At what point did you start to grow beyond, um, beyond that? What, and once you did beyond, um, word of mouth, what’s the next step?
Adam Gilbert: So then it was just about finding, you know, our goal, we don’t have revenue goals. Our only goal is to hire world-class coaches. And I think things really started to change. Once, you know, my first son was born Zachary, and it was like, hey, like let’s systematize this. Let’s, we have a process. We have core tactics, we have core philosophies that we teach.
Let’s find incredible coaches. Um, and once we did that, it’s always, every year it’s just about how do we add a few more of these world class coaches?
Andrew Warner: Why? I would’ve thought that the, to, to be honest with you. Until I, until I really looked in your site in preparation for this interview, I just assumed that what you had was a few people overseas who were able to just, just send out text messages, use a lot of scripts, and that’s it.
No. Why can’t it be that? Why does it need to be a real trait, a real trainer?
Adam Gilbert: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a good point. I mean, so all of our coaches are certified health coaches. They come to us with extensive experience. Um. If someone is just saying, good job, bad job. Did you do this? Did you not do that? That’s not really all that helpful.
I mean, it’s helpful, but we’re also experts, right? We’re experts in behavior and habit change. We’re experts in emotional and trust eating, so we’re way more than just accountability. Um, so yeah, I mean, I guess you could do that, but there’s no way clients would stick with it if they felt like it was just some person mailing and checking on them, you know, randomly.
Andrew Warner: Like you really want someone who can answer your health questions without having to Google it. Your customers can tell.
Adam Gilbert: Yeah, and it’s also like you have to be an expert to help someone change. The way they think and react to food, the way they use food, right? Like you can’t, you can’t just tell someone, oh, like try harder or do better.
Like that’s not helpful. There’s a reason every behavior has a motivation, right? There’s a reason people emotionally eat. There’s a reason people stress eat. And that’s a big part of what our coaches help our clients do is like, ’cause again, these people, we all know what to do. Why can’t we do it? That’s the big question.
That’s what I thought
Andrew Warner: it would be. Nothing like nothing, but having another human being check in on you that matters. No, it’s not just accountability.
Adam Gilbert: No, it’s not just accountability and that to your point, like if someone was just, you know, checking in from you, you know, some overseas like, and just like, Hey, how did today go?
Like, would you really care? There’s no relationship there, right? Our coaches and clients have a real relationship. They check in every single day. How do you know,
Andrew Warner: like I. I’m not making this stuff up. I remember talking to Tim Ferriss and telling him that I was trying to eat better. He said, just take a picture of everything you eat and send a text.
I think he even said, send a text to yourself and that’s gonna raise awareness and that’s enough. How do you know that you need this world class set of trainers and not just somebody overseas who doesn’t get paid much, who can do it for you?
Adam Gilbert: Well, I would say not to be self-serving, but I would say try texting pictures to yourself.
Try using, you know, apps where you’re just counting calories. Data alone, you know, rarely changes behavior. Typically when we’re on our own, we just say, screw it, I’ll start fresh tomorrow. Or start Fresh Monday or recently, client signed up. She’s told herself she, she’ll start Fresh Monday for the last 10 years.
Right? Like you need someone else there. You need external accountability. And many of us are very good at making promises to other people and keeping them, but when it comes to ourselves, we’re terrible.
Andrew Warner: Okay. All right. So talk to me about the next step of growth. It’s a, it’s a lot of word of mouth. It’s a lot of you finding the, the best trainers.
Alright. What’s next? Did you, you, I, I think I’ve seen some ads from you. Have ads actually produced anything for you? I think I’ve seen you do some kind of workshop, uh, over the years. Did that do anything?
Adam Gilbert: So we, we’ve, we’ve experimented with ads. Again, thankfully word of mouth has always been a huge. And a majority driver of our new clients.
Um, we’ve, so we offer an accountability coach certification. Maybe that’s what you’ve seen. Um, so there are people who are interested in becoming an accountability coach. And you know, we’ve been at this now for 18 years, you know, we really know this stuff inside and out. Um, so, you know, for many years people were asking like, Hey, what are your.
Coaches teaching your clients, like how are you helping these people get results? So we launched that, which has been wonderful. Um, but you know, it’s all about it. It really, 90 to 95% of that of our new lead generation is word of mouth.
Andrew Warner: What about that? Uh, weren’t you on Good Morning America?
Adam Gilbert: Yes, we were on Good Morning
Andrew Warner: America.
How did that, how did that happen and what was the impact?
Adam Gilbert: So one of our clients was actually a producer. For, uh, Thrillist, I don’t know if you remember that email newsletter back in the day. Yes. Um, and they, he loved the service. He wrote about us in Thrillist, and then Thrillist actually had a segment, a regular segment on Good Morning America, where they were feature cool, new, fun, interesting services, and they, and they picked us.
Andrew Warner: And so what was the impact on the business?
Adam Gilbert: You know, surprisingly it was, it was nice. There was a nice little bump, but. Um, it, it certainly helped with, um, you know, social proof and all that stuff, but we’ve had much bigger bumps from things that are online. Um, like what? Just being featured on different podcasts, um, being mentioned in different blogs, um, where just, you know, like we were on, um.
Been on many, I, I’m trying to think of one back day. You were on
Andrew Warner: Hampton podcast a while. I mean, on their blog a while back. I imagine that sent customers over.
Adam Gilbert: Yeah. I mean, there’s just been, you know, we’ve been, thankfully we’ve written some, you know, back in them when guest posts were big, you know, good guest posts on a, on a blog could, you know, do really well.
Yeah.
Andrew Warner: All right, I get that. Then how did you come up with the next idea, which was to do the same thing for business people?
Adam Gilbert: Yeah. So, you know, for years. People were like, Hey, is there a My body tutor for productivity coaching? Like, you guys clearly get this for health and fitness. Why don’t you do this for my, for productivity?
And we, you know, we always just, we listened, but it’s like, yeah, we’re focused on health and fitness. But like after a while it just became overwhelming. Like we were just getting a lot of requests like, Hey, would you ever think about doing this? And we finally realized like, Hey, we know accountability better than anyone.
Um, so we started testing the idea last year. Um, with some clients and people who reached out. ’cause we always like kept a list of people who asked about that. They loved it. And we officially launched done daily in January of, of this year.
Andrew Warner: And how’d you get your, I’m assuming your first customers, I’m assuming your first customers came from my body tutor right.
Adam Gilbert: Yes, but we also, were very fortunate. We have people like Cal Newport who’s a productivity expert. He’s a big fan of what we do. And you know, the big idea for Done Daily as well as my body tutor is like, we really believe we know what we need to do. The real question is, why can’t we do it? And we really believe accountability from a human is really the missing link.
Um, and thankfully it’s been great. I mean, people are getting stuff done daily and they’re, you know, it’s, it’s been really cool.
Andrew Warner: All right. I get, I get that. Um, I’m wondering what else there is. Like now I’m thinking, damn it, I should have done something like done daily years ago. I saw how helpful it was for me to do it, um, to have somebody hold me accountable.
Do you see any other areas where this approach would work, where someone would need accountability? I.
Adam Gilbert: I mean, I think accountability could be used in so many different areas. I mean, you can use it for, you know, alcohol, you can use it for, you know, smoking. I mean, you can use it potentially for budgeting.
Um, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of areas where it could potentially be used, you know, for us. We’re behavior, we’re really, I mean, it’s all behavior change, but I really think, you know, productivity and fitness actually go very, are very similar, um mm-hmm. And it’s just a lot of the same skill sets. Um, so yeah.
But there’s, there’s certainly opportunity to use accountability elsewhere.
Andrew Warner: Uh, yeah. I kind of think now that anything that people are selling, especially if it’s a service, there’s an opportunity to create an accountability buddy that also has, um, advanced knowledge of the material who could then come in and help, like.
I, I actually, one of my frustrations with online courses is that I sometimes don’t wanna take the course. I just wanna hire one of the graduates. Like we both have a friend, Neville Madora. I freaking love his copy. We’ve hired him over the years to write copy for us to even help our advertisers improve their copy, because if they could get better results, it’s good for me and it’s good for them.
At some point, he’s just not available to be to, to be hired for that stuff. He’s training people. I just wish that what he would do is put a, a link on his site where you can hire his graduates because they’re fantastic. Or a link where you can, I don’t know, I dunno, some kind of matchmaking service. But now I’m thinking, you know, the other thing is if you’re learning how to, how to write from him, you probably need an accountability person.
And I imagine that this is another aspect that he could add on to his business. Totally. And the same thing for anyone who’s doing online training.
Adam Gilbert: Totally. I mean, that was a big, you know, um, gap I noticed. I mean, back in 2007 when I started my Body Tutor, there were so many courses. I mean, people were selling courses for thousands of dollars.
And if you talk to any of these people behind the scenes, the biggest issue for them was people were not following through. They were not completing the courses. Yeah, we, we flipped it on and said we felt like the knowledge is there. We’re not gonna, you know, sell the knowledge. Of course we give our clients all sorts of tips and strategies and tactics, but the real value for us is we’re gonna make sure you’re following through.
Um, and it’s been interesting to see how over the years, a lot of those people who I’m referring to, where they had incredible courses and were selling, you know, seemingly like, like hotcakes. They started building in accountability. ’cause they realized that’s the hard part.
Andrew Warner: I don’t, I don’t really see them, to be honest with you.
Building an accountability, to be honest, I feel like most people still feel comfortable saying, I, I’m a, I’m going to create the knowledge. I’m gonna create the course, I’m gonna create the thing. And it’s on you to figure out how to do it. And if it, if you can’t do it, it’s your fault.
Adam Gilbert: Right. And, and it per perhaps, and, and I’m, and I mean, I guess yes, there, there are some, but you know, for me, as we talked about earlier, I think.
That is a mistake, and I think it is totally on the teacher and the, you know, company that is selling the information to make sure that people are following through. Because you know, if you’re not acting on the information, then what’s the point, right? And so, yeah.
Andrew Warner: All right. I get it. So far it feels like everything worked out easily.
Was it like that where it was just an easy idea a month? One, you make enough profit to pay your rent and then after a year you hire people? I don’t see any challenges here. It feels like an easy road.
Adam Gilbert: No, there are lots of challenges, lots of cha challenges. The, you know, the first, you know, so Zachary’s, 11 years old, um, you know, so the first six, seven years, it was lots of struggle of.
Managing people, finding the right systems, you know, trying to build the app. So it’s exactly the way I want it. Um, scaling it, just, you know, the biggest change came when I found Haley, her head coach. Um, and she really is absolutely incredible what she does. She’s a world-class coach and really was able to help me, you know.
Systematize what I wanna do. And also just, we had a, we, we, we were able to start training coaches and I just, I guess the bottom line is she’s the first coach I really, really believed in. Um, and then everything from there was a lot easier. But listen, any business has challenges, you know? Uh, like what,
Andrew Warner: tell me more.
Tell me more about the coaches that didn’t work out and what the issue was, or about you even as a leader.
Adam Gilbert: Yeah, so. In terms of the coaches that didn’t work out very similar to what we talked about earlier. We had coaches who really thought it was the client’s fault if they weren’t following through, and that is exact, the exact opposite of the way we approach it.
If your client is not following through, that is your problem, not their problem. The plan needs to be adjusted. We need to address what’s going on between their ears, their mindset, psychology, and habits. The accountability is off. Something is off. So we learned early on in terms of like, I. Hiring mistakes.
Like what to look for, what not, what not to look for. I mean, we, we’ve made all those mistakes.
Andrew Warner: So how much time are you spending with your clients beyond just checking in on them to actually train them? I.
Adam Gilbert: So, I mean, the core component is each day you’re, you’re reviewing what they did. So you’re spending a good, you know, 10, 15 minutes every day reviewing what they did the prior day.
And then you might be checking in with them through the day, depending on what plan they’re on, you know, if they have more phone calls or not. Um, but you know, every day your coach is reviewing your prior day and making sure you’re set up for that day. Um, so. It’s, you know, I mean, obviously they’re not on you all day long, but they’re very, you’re, you’re gonna feel very accountable to your coach.
Andrew Warner: All right. I think I’ve got this, the business. I see where this is going. One last thing. What’s the deal with Noah messaging you? Why is Noah messaging you directly?
Adam Gilbert: I mean, listen, Noah is one of my closest friends in the world. Um, you know, one of the coolest parts about my body tutor is, you know, um. I mean, I actually knew him even before my body tutor, but it’s just, you get to meet all sorts of cool people and uh, you know, it’s just, you know, he is one of my closest friends.
I’m happy to help him and, uh, you know, it’s great. So you were just doing this as a buddy?
Andrew Warner: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of weird. I remember when he was doing it, I felt like, man, how is he not seeing this as a burden to Adam? I, because you, you sell this, number one and number two, he, he’s just constantly pinging you, whatever he’s eating, which, no,
Adam Gilbert: it’s, no, I, I absolutely live for what I do.
I love what I do. You know, when you work at Ernst Young for two years, I. And within the first week of that job, you have a stomach ache. ’cause you know that’s not what you’re meant to be doing. Like every single day. I’m so grateful for what I get to do. Uh, I’m so grateful for being able to have an impact on people’s lives.
I still, if I, if I, I could still remember and feel that feeling of going to work for those two years, and I absolutely despised it. So every time someone like Noah reaches out to me or whatever, I, I love it. It is, there’s zero. Annoyance or anything of the sort. And I told Noah to text me, so, you know, it was, it was all good.
Andrew Warner: I get that. So I was at his book signing, um, actually at his book launch party and everyone said something nice about Noah. It just kind of came about where we were all just being appreciative of him. And one person said that Noah once saw that he was stuck and not making enough progress in business.
And he said, you know what? Every week just tell me what you’re gonna get done for the coming week. And he goes, that’s been like 10 years now. Every week I still do it. I tell him what I’m up to and I go, all right, this seems like kind of a burden to be faced with all these text messages, but damn it also is super exciting to know that there’s someone who’s constantly telling you what they’re doing, constantly making progress, and you’ve got this history of, of watching them grow.
And I guess that’s what you’ve got with your clients.
Adam Gilbert: I mean, and for the record, wait, I, Noah, so he, every week he texts me what we call weekly and it has been unbelievable. First off, he’s the most consistent person I’ve ever met. Um, it’s just incredible. Um, and just to see how he’s grown over the years in terms of just fitness business.
And every week he plans what he’s gonna do and hold him accountable. It’s, it’s been amazing to be a part of it, meaning
Andrew Warner: like ahead of the week, he tells you, this is where what I’m gonna be doing. I’m going over to Andrew’s house, he’s probably gonna stick me with a bunch of scotch. I have to think about what I’m gonna do before, how I’m gonna prepare for telling him No.
He’s thinking that far ahead too Friday, if he’s telling you at the beginning of the week. Yep,
Adam Gilbert: he is. Yep. We talk about business, we talk about personal, we talk about growth, we talk about exercise, and every week he does that. He has not missed a week. Since we started doing this, it’s gotta be at least 12 years now, easily.
Andrew Warner: He’s super, uh, he’s super impressive that way, that, that he consistently does the thing that he’s going to do. You know, the other thing that is consistent, I’ve tried to figure out how he gives gifts. I go over to his house. There’s constantly a gift and it’s always an incredibly thoughtful gift. He come, he came over for dinner.
We didn’t have candles. The next time I go to his house, because my kids are selling him eggs, right? Because I, I told my kids before he came over, he’s the guy, he’s, you gotta sell him something you gotta learn by, by selling. So they sold him eggs. He was very encouraging. He said, come on over again. I could use more eggs.
So I drove the kids over to his house to sell him eggs. As I go in there, he goes, I saw that you didn’t have candles, Andrew, so I got you a box of candles. He got me a giant box of candles. Um, I don’t know where this come from, but it’s impressive.
Adam Gilbert: He’s the man. He, he’s one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met.
And, uh, you know, just absolutely incredible. You know, I think Noah’s challenge for a little bit was he would always be interested in trying new things and it was like, Hey, let’s, let’s focus on what’s working, right? Like, let the, the other de definition of insanity that no one talks about is stopping something that’s already working.
We always talk about, you know, doing the same thing over. Um, but I, I mean, he’s just. Absolutely the most consistent person I’ve ever worked with.
Andrew Warner: Like what, what’s a new thing that he kept, that he tried that he should have just given up on and stuck with? What worked
Adam Gilbert: well, just even in fitness, like when I was really helping him and I mean, we got him in awesome shape.
Um, and every now and then he’d be like, Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? I’d be like, dude. What you’re doing is working. Why would we change it up? Like there’s no reason to shake it up. So, and he’d be like, all right, all right, you’re right, you’re right. And like, you know, and that’s natural, right?
That’s that’s natural to be like, Hey, well what about this? What about that? But it’s like, why change something that’s already working so well?
Andrew Warner: Yeah.
Adam Gilbert: All
Andrew Warner: right. I get it. Congratulations on the business. All right, so it’s my body tutor.com, and then the other one is done. Da. Wait, what’s the URL? Yeah, done daily.com.
Done daily.com. Nice. URL. And,
Adam Gilbert: and you know, our thesis on that is, you know, especially for us entrepreneurs, we know what to do, but. We’re spending so much time putting out fires and working on quote unquote, the urgent things, not the important things. And the idea with Done Daily is we’re gonna help you decide what’s important.
What are two to three meaningful things you can get done each day? You do that every day for a week, for a month, for a quarter. It’s unbelievable what you can accomplish. And so I talk
Andrew Warner: with a coach. I talk with a coach once a week by voice, and then every day we text you with each other
Adam Gilbert: forth with them.
So you’re setting the intention. What am I gonna accomplish the following day? At the end of the day, you’re gonna plan what you’re gonna do with your coach for the next day. They’re gonna check in with you throughout the day. You figure out, did you get it done? Great. If not, what got in the way? There’s always things that might get in the way, we’ll help you with that.
But it’s just that daily human to human one-on-one coaching and accountability that really makes all the difference. Um, and it’s incredible. I mean, we worked with so many people who’ve just gotten more, they’ve said they’ve gotten more done in the last quarter than they’ve gotten in years.
Andrew Warner: Hell yeah, I get that.
I totally get that. I didn’t realize you guys did that much. I just assumed it was morning check-ins and then come back the next day and talk about it again.
Adam Gilbert: No, it’s, it’s, it’s way more than that. It’s, it’s, you know, that it’s, it’s, you know, we have, they’re, our coaches are really, um, you know, they’re very invested in and they really help, you know, people get outta their own way because it’s not just sometimes about just having accountability.
It’s. Something’s getting in the way, whether it’s procrastination, self-sabotage, all sorts of things might get in the way. And we’re really good at helping our clients move through that.
Andrew Warner: Hell yeah. Alright, congratulations. Um, and I hope to see you when you’re in Austin, or I am. Uh, you’re in Connecticut.
You also moved there.
Adam Gilbert: Yep. Thanks man, this is really fun.
Andrew Warner: Bye everyone.